THE KÜTNE READER

A roundup of unusual stories, including a long-haired mail carrier, and a couple who married in their mid-80s.

In 1992, a classified ad appeared in The Mystery Review , a now-defunct quarterly magazine, that read as follows: Put Rossland, British Columbia in your mystery story and you'll earn a bonus from a BC booster! Here's the deal ... a cash payment for publicizing Rossland in a published (independent publisher, not self-published) mystery book, according to the size of the boost as per the following sliding scale: If you mention Rossland … $25 If your prose demonstrates some rese

When he wasn’t out sleuthing, Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street in London. According to Wikipedia , at the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his stories in the 19th century, that fictional address did not exist. But when the real Baker Street was extended, the Abbey National Building Society moved into 219-229 Baker, and “employed a full-time secretary to answer mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes.” In 1990, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, at 237-241 Baker, installed a

I just finished reading Eve Lazarus’ book Blood, Sweat, and Fear , about John F.C.B. Vance (1884-1964), a Vancouver forensic scientist who was known internationally as Canada’s Sherlock Holmes. On page 32, she writes: Young John Vance worked for various mines since he was 17. He’d started as an assistant assayer and soon became the assistant chemist at the War Eagle cyanide extraction plant in Trail, where he developed a cone hood for a hot blast furnace, a breakthrough in me